I remember John Steane in his early days as a teacher at Merchant
Taylors’ School, Northwood. His teaching of English was essentially
that of an enthusiast for the books or plays being studied,
eager to praise what was good and to analyse why that was so.
He encouraged his pupils to a similar mixture and enthusiasm
and critical analysis.

But it was outside his formal teaching that his influence was
greatest, especially amongst those who were not musical specialists.
He organized frequent lunchtime concerts where pupils and staff
played and sang an astonishing range of music. From “Cox and
Box” to Bartok and Webern (unusual in schools in the early 1950s)
and from Barber Shop to the sextet from Lucia (with the aid
of pupils from a nearby girls’ school), all were normal fare
for us with John’s encouragement. He arranged occasional visits
to Sadlers Wells where he would tell of other performances of
the works we were hearing that he had experienced. He was an
enthusiastic if not always accurate pianist and singer. He sometimes
accompanied morning prayers on the organ where his choice of
music to accompany the normally dignified exit of the masters
included Mendelssohn’s Wedding March and “With cat like tread”.

On the all too rare occasions I met him subsequently he still
had a twinkle in his eye as well as a whole-hearted enthusiasm
for music, especially vocal music. His nickname as a teacher
had been Pickwick, appropriate for someone who so much encouraged
gusto for life in others. His books on Marlowe and Tennyson
are admirable introductions to those writers but it is his various
books about singers that are likely to be his main legacy. They
will surely be counted as an important part of that great tradition
of musical criticism which has included Shaw, Cardus and Porter,
and which can be read with interest and pleasure regardless
of the reader’s concern for the subject. The mixture of knowledge,
enthusiasm, analysis, humour and imagination that he invariably
produced was a model of its kind. Most of my own writing has
been in fields far from music but I have tried hard to emulate
these characteristics. He was a fine teacher and a fine writer
but for anyone who knew him it was his humanity and enthusiasm
that will be best remembered.

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